The pursuit of being efficient is a trap. It places the emphasis on doing things for efficiency’s sake, and that’s not very efficient. And yet, humans are obsessed with efficiency, but why? The conventional argument for efficiency is that it rewards you with time. You didn’t waste time; you used it well. But to be clear, being efficient doesn’t mean being fast. It can mean saving time. But being fast at the expense of quality is just rushing.

So, how is something deemed efficient? It’s contextual. Efficiency could be evaluated as the perceived net experience between two or more humans. It can’t exist in a vacuum of one person's judgment. You can think you were efficient, but can it hold value unless aligned with the perception of at least one other human? Adding one or more humans immediately requires factoring their perception into the efficiency formula. What you felt was done efficiently could be highly inefficient in their sphere of experience. In this way, the baseline for efficiency can shift rapidly as new methodologies and technologies are adopted and woven into the collective consciousness.

Efficiency is inherently tied to doing something both well and in a timely manner. Flipping this, efficiency relates to not spending too long on something for the quality of the output. Efficiency bodes well with the 80/20 rule. Perhaps the art of efficiency is identifying the diminishing returns given the experience, knowledge, and tools at hand relative to the time planned to do something. Once you enter the potential zone of diminishment, you’re gambling or just indulging.

Weirdly, the gamble on efficiency is often where the real breakthroughs lurk. Efficiency is often at odds with exploration and innovation. Efficiency at the expense of discovering or learning something new is a wasted opportunity. And sometimes it’s when you’re intentionally not being efficient that it actually fuels your net efficiency.

Rick Rubin, The Creative Act

An efficient creative is basically an oxymoron. But that depends on each artist's definition of efficiency. In this case, we’re loosely aligning creative efficiency with success by releasing work to the world, being recognised and compensated for it, enough to keep you being a creative.

And so Rick is right, but even he would admit that you can’t explore and go deep on something forever. His fame and recognition would not exist if he hadn’t found the line. I believe the art and balance some of the most efficient creatives is knowing when you’ve given it all you can, given the circumstances of your abilities, in the time believed to be reasonable, in the confines of a human's living space. When you’ve done good by all means possible, explored further or added value along the way, to the measure of which the measure of timeliness has been met or exceeded. That still feels efficient.